HUEYTOWN,
Alabama -- The Hueytown Police Department is hosting a community meeting this weekend
and plans on hosting more events like it, with the intent of getting residents
to meet and look out for each other, according to Police Chief Chuck Hagler.

The first
meeting will take place on Inglenook Drive between June and Ivy Avenues on Sunday
at 5:30 p.m.

"We are
blocking off the street and providing a meal," Hagler said in an email to
AL.com.

In addition
to the meal, the meeting Sunday will involve some other planned activities. "I
will speak briefly, and there will be officers there to talk to the citizens," according
to Hagler.

However,
the chief said the main purpose of the event is to help reduce crime by "fostering
a sense of community."

"We
hope to get the people in the community out and talking to each other," Hagler
said. "People are more inclined to look out for their neighbors when they can
put a face and a name to the house instead of just thinking of it as 'that house
at the end of the street.'"

Hagler
said the department plans more such events this fall. "We are going to try and
do as many of these as we can within our budget and before the weather gets too
cold," he said. "We scouted a number of locations suitable for this all over
the city. We just don't have the resources to visit them all, so we are drawing
the locations at random."